# Preface Date: Sunday, December 28, 2025 **Please note:** I'm stacking my fiction and (eventually) non-fiction for Fridays in future. So you won't immediately see the content for Substack. It's queued up. There's only a few days left in the year. And it's ending on a hilarious note. If you're not aware, Sweden has a straw goat -- the Gävle goat. [A Swedish YouTuber even made an entire video about it](https://youtu.be/ROzkRmrlqyU?si=KcKImGIU4Orj4OyH) (time warning: this is 1HR 42MIN. It's a long time run but very much worth it). Tumblr (yes, it's still around) waits every winter solstice with bated breath for the day that the straw goat is set on fire. This year, it was blown down by wind. Tumblr is in an uproar at the moment; unable to stick to anything but upset that it was set on fire and making memes out of it. The same [YouTuber has made a reaction video](https://youtu.be/tN2MsPBKvc4?si=QxFRzl6tTkwZ4oqO), so you too can see the goat fall over. That's the exterior news. Time for the interior. I didn't write a whole lot. Just a measly 800+ words on christmas day. It was during The Cloudward, Ho! finale (jokingly set on christmas day, so this was on purpose) and I tend to need something to do while I listen/watch. That ended up being the Mystery creation for my latest Monster of the Week Session. I'm starting to use [Ellipsus](https://ellipsus.com), a new writing software that allows you to have multiple drafts and even collaborators. It makes it easy for notes or to build your world in text form. And I'm seeing how I can use it for some of my own world building for Monster of the Week. # Part 1: Fiction ## 1.1 Monster of the Week Titled: "Pumpkin Jack" Date: December 25, 2025 Word count: 851 Synopsis: Our monster hunters are brought to a cemetery in Oakland, California. There is a stolen grimoire and the local owner of a magick museum is worried there will be a necromancer brought back to life. Notes: There was a necromancer mistakenly brought back to life by local teens who didn't know they were messing with real magic. The Monster Hunters were brought in to handle the situation. Right as the necromancer began attacking, one of the Hunters was able to bring the tension down and broke part of the spell. With the help of a very apologetic Jack, he helped the hunters reverse the spell. Sadly, this also took the animation away from Jack as well. But in the end, the hunters saved the day and a group of kids who now know better than to mess with grimoires. # Conclusion This week had me slow down significantly. Maybe I'm a bit deflated from all the writing last week and need to rest up. But with a ton of feedback across two projects, I really think I'll be able to complete two short stories before school starts on January 20th. Also, holy cow! I wrote 12K words this month! But there's still a few more days left. I do feel like I need rest. But I often find myself with nothing to do! And I need to keep myself busy. Thanks for reading, and I'll see you next week! The below table is mostly for myself. But if you, like me, enjoy seeing numbers go up in any capacity, then this may be for you as well. It's meant to be an encouragement. | Word Type | Word Counts | Monthly Totals | | --------------------- | --------------- | -------------- | | Project Castro | 277+0+749+0 | 1,026 | | Project Moonshadow | 1,272+267+0+0 | 1,539 | | Flash Fiction Fridays | 441+628+0+0 | 1,069 | | Non-Fiction | 1,092+2,350+0+0 | 3,442 | | Story Submission | 0+0+4,233+0 | 4,233 | | MotW / TTRPG | 851 | 851 | | **Grand Total** | | **12,160** |